On limiting population growth thru contraception

[buffalo]

That’s true, and the reason why I view the solar carrying capacity of the earth as the norm. Of course, that is not good for a population beyond that capacity, which is where we are now. When the nonrenewables that allow the current level of population to exist go away, so will the excess population.

You do not really have to worry - the world is aborting and contracepting itself so we will see falling population.

 

[Contarini]

From one who knows so little of the great contribution of the Late Scholastics, how foolish to assume that they “clearly departed from him in economic matters”!

I’m taking your word and that of others for what the late scholastics taught. I know first-hand what Aquinas taught. It is possible that the Late Scholastics are themselves being twisted to support a position they didn’t defend. But I know Aquinas didn’t.

Learn from those who do know – Dr Chafuen, Dr Woods, Rodney Stark, Fr James v Schall, S.J., Fr Percy.

The only one of these people with whose work I’m familiar (outside quotations on this forum) is Rodney Stark, and frankly I have better credentials with regards to the history of Christian thought than he does. He’s a sociologist who knows a lot about modern America but stumbles when he talks about church history. I have verified this to my own satisfaction in terms of his treatment of the Middle Ages and the Fathers.

St Augustine taught that wickedness was not inherent in commerce, that price was a function not simply of the seller’s costs, bit also of the buyer’s wants, and it was up to the individual to live righteously. [Politics I, 1254].

What is this reference? St. Augustine did not write a work called Politics as far as I know. Are you sure you aren’t citing Aristotle?

I’m quite aware that the Christian tradition doesn’t hold that wickedness is inherent in commerce–one can engage in commerce righteously. No question about that.

Thus he gave legitimacy to merchants, and to the deep involvement of the Church in the birth of free enterprise.

That’s a huge leap. And as I said, I’ve read Stark’s Victory of Reason and his interpretation of Augustine doesn’t match either my own reading or that of Augustine scholars with whom I’m familiar. He takes passages from Augustine about human creativity in the arts and sciences out of context to portray Augustine as an unqualified optimist in this regard, not dealing seriously with Augustine’s deep pessimism about fallen human nature. Augustine did not hold the doctrine of progress that Stark attributes to him.

St Benedict wrote in the sixth century in his famous rule: “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the brothers should have specified periods for manual labour as well as prayerful reading….When they live by the labour of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks.” [Chap 40: *The Daily Manual Labour

].

No dispute here. But St. Benedict did not regard this labor as something that should be done for material gain, but for the spiritual good of the monks and in order to provide for their basic needs.

In the thirteenth century, St Albertus Magnus proposed that the “just price” is what “goods are worth according to the estimation of the market at the time of sale.” [Commentary on The Sentences of Peter Lombard].

Yes, but the high medieval view of “just price” as a whole is a bit more complex than that, having concern to protect buyers from exploitation. Certainly proto-capitalist understandings of market value played a role. There is also some debate over whether St. Albert and St. Thomas hold the same view, and St. Thomas’s view may have changed between the Sentences commentary and the Summa.

It’s hard to have a discussion when you simply present scattered quotations from authorities you happen to like.

Edwin

 

[Warrior1979]

Quite true. Most of the great cultural, music, artistic, theological, and scientific insights of humanity have come while the global population was still under one billion.

I believe there are many reasons for this. A big one has to do with all the “modern conveniences” being a distraction, which tend to cause one from keeping focus for any period of time. I see that in my own hobby (music). When I learned how to play an instruments, there was no internet, iPods, etc. People practiced for hours and years on end with no distraction. Good players were a dime a dozen. Nowadays, they are much more scarce, and that is with a much larger population of people.

 

[Warrior1979]

You do not really have to worry - the world is aborting and contracepting itself so we will see falling population.

The is the crux of the argument…it’s about stopping abortion and contraception at all costs; facts, reality, and whether the argument makes sense be damned. I’m against abortion too, but I’m going to make sure my arguments are coherent and my facts are correct, otherwise I discredit the cause.

With regard to population, it has not been established that rising population is necessary for human survival. Facts dictate it is not. Naturally, it is necessary for an economy set up like a Ponzi scheme, but that is unsustainable, and the choice of man, not nature or God.

 

[Nate13]

Nate13m let’s agree to disagree, or else this well be in interminable war of citation of sources. I am not a scientist but a theologian, dealing with theological and moral implications of science denial. For my science I rely on climate scientists such as the staff of the International Energy Agency, who have issued this warning:

"The world is likely to build so many fossil-fueled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

"Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this “lock-in” effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world’s foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”

Sigh, its pretty simple though. You sighted one stat that said over the last 100 years we have had about a 3mm rise in sea level every year. I then based conclusions on that, and said it would take at least 350 years before that threatened any populations assuming that was even a local sea level rise. You then preceded to quote some other crazy source that said we should expect 3ft to 7ft within this century. If your going to quote such wild claims it would be helpful if you could explain your reasoning. As someone studying this I would assume you would do the simple math and see the obvious gap in reasoning here and question it. Calling out the obvious failure from the other poster to subtract out the original ice volume is another such case especially when his conclusion of sea level rise was 90% higher than it should have been. Ice is 9% less dense than water. 25ft max rise in sea level as opposed to 251ft?

 

[StAnastasia]

With regard to population, it has not been established that rising population is necessary for human survival. Facts dictate it is not. Naturally, it is necessary for an economy set up like a Ponzi scheme, but that is unsustainable, and the choice of man, not nature or God.

One way or another *Homo sapiens *will reach zero population growth. If we don’t do so voluntarily, “nature” will do so itself. Nature not only bats last, but owns the ballpark.

 

[Warrior1979]

Ice is 9% less dense than water. 25ft max rise in sea level as opposed to 251ft?

Is the ice you are referring to on land or in the water? It makes a big difference in terms of sea level rise, as well as temperature regulation.

 

[Nate13]

Is the ice you are referring to on land or in the water? It makes a big difference in terms of sea level rise, as well as temperature regulation.

Haha either way is it that much different than the 9% difference? I was using it as a guideline to make a point in the crazy number that was posted which no one seemed to question. Whether its 90% off or 80% off its absolutely ridiculous. I’d also wonder if ice that is packed together under thousands of tons of other ice would not possibly be more dense than you would expect ice to be. Glacier ice is anywhere between 830kg/m^3 and 923 kg/m^3.

books.google.com/books?id=Jca2v1u1EKEC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=density+of+glacier+ice+at+different+depths&source=bl&ots=KKGL93sild&sig=skMz1t53w9pNtlyzIH8OCIeVH_0&hl=en&ei=Ozm8TqeILdSWtweL3M2fBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=density%20of%20glacier%20ice%20at%20different%20depths&f=false

The estimate should be slightly higher than potentially 25ft, because obviously not all of the glacier is underwater. I believe on average though 90% of a glacier is underwater. So maybe max we are talking about 50ft assuming all the worlds’ glaciers completely melted?

 

[Warrior1979]

Glaciers that are 100% in the water melting in water are not going to cause the water level to rise. Furthermore, their being in the water in the first place affects the water temperature. Glaciers on land are a different story. Since they are not in the water in the first place, 100% of their runoff that makes it to the ocean causes the water level to rise. Furthermore, since they are not in the water in the first place, they are not regulating water temperature directly. Their runoff will also be higher than freezing temperature.

 

[Nate13]

Glaciers that are 100% in the water melting in water are not going to cause the water level to rise. Furthermore, their being in the water in the first place affects the water temperature. Glaciers on land are a different story. Since they are not in the water in the first place, 100% of their runoff that makes it to the ocean causes the water level to rise. Furthermore, since they are not in the water in the first place, they are not regulating water temperature directly. Their runoff will also be higher than freezing temperature.

Agreed its more complicated then it first appears. You also don’t know all the run-off will add to the sea-level rise because it could stay inland. Its complicated which is why the best way to address the problem is by looking a local sea level rises which is what the study I posted did. If someone wants to argue that rising sea levels are going to put parts of the Netherlands underwater they should site sources showing rising sea levels on that particular coast, not sea level rise in general. Especially when that supposed sea level rise is based on models and theories that don’t align themselves with any of the collected data so far.

 

[Abu]

Contarini #381
I know first-hand what Aquinas taught. It is possible that the Late Scholastics are themselves being twisted to support a position they didn’t defend. But I know Aquinas didn’t.

“it is possible” – you don’t know – and yet accuse these authors by inference of “twisting” the Late Scholastic “positions”.

[Politics I, 1254]. What is this reference? St. Augustine did not write a work called Politics as far as I know. Are you sure you aren’t citing Aristotle?

Thank you for querying this error – the correct reference is [not to Plato] but to John W Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price, The American Philosophical Society, 1959, p 15:
St Augustine taught that wickedness was not inherent in commerce, that price was a function not simply of the seller’s costs, bit also of the buyer’s wants, and it was up to the individual to live righteously.

It’s hard to have a discussion when you simply present scattered quotations from authorities you happen to like.

The presentation is of facts drawn from the authors’ research, facts which have not been disputed by any other facts.

 

[buffalo]

Obama’s 2% Lie

Gas prices shot up 18 cents on average nationwide over the past two weeks, according to the latest Lundberg survey.
That puts the average cost of regular gas at $3.69 a gallon. Of course, many of you around the country are already paying over $4.
President Obama, members of his administration, Democrats in Congress, and his allies on the left all make the same case: we can’t “drill our way” out of this problem.
They say we use a quarter of the world’s oil, but only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves. So, do the math. They say it’s impossible, but here’s how he gets to that mythical 2%.
For simplicity, we’ll call it Obama’s big oil lie because that’s what it is.

Read more: foxbusiness.com/on-air/willis-report/blog/2012/02/27/obamas-2-lie#ixzz1olXZKBtQ

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

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